There is definitely adjective order in English, but it's hard to pin down. I've had it described that "the most controlling adjectives come first," but I'm not sure I understand what that means. You'd certainly say "six white stone houses," not "stone white six houses" or "white six stone houses" or such.
The rules for ordering drinks at Starbucks are also precise but hard to generalize. "Decaf grande no-whip soy mocha." If you order a "soy grande mocha, the cashier will call it correctly to the barrista.
Oh, i know there is an order -- numbers first, for example. I was wondering whether there are some types that always come last. Is it more: there words come first, these come last, the rest in the middle , or is it "here's a way to put them in order", which is what your rule about most-controlling adjectives implies
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while these categories clearly have an order, I think there's nothing inherent in each category that puts it in the position it's in. IE, there's nothing about "Material" adjectives that means they SHOULD be close to the noun, and nothing about "Size" adjectives that mean they HAVE to come first; it's just habit. IMU*O.
That's fascinating about starbucks. I hadn't noticed that. I wonder if it's company policy (it could be; they're VERY precise about the "starbucks experience) or if it's a naturally-occuring convention.
I think the order of the first two in that list should be reversed - big beautiful woman, big ugly ass, fast little car, etc.
The spots to fill in the order details on a Starbucks cup, top to bottom, are: Decaf, shots, syrup, milk, custom, drink. Other than where "size" goes, that seems to fit the observation above; it would make sense (either organically or by training) to call the words in cup order.
And now my brain is sitting here going "easy short book? short easy book? interesting large drawing? large interesting drawing?" and I can no longer tell which one sounds natural because they all sound weird. I'm inclined to agree with you, though.
Well, the orders can also shift for emphasis, and "beautiful big woman" isn't an IMPOSSIBLE phrasing in English - just a slightly less common one.
My feeling is that language a) has conventions, not rules and b) the conventions aren't for a reason. Like, there's no reason why subject-verb-object is better than object-verb-subject for conveying info. It's just a convention people observe.
Oh, it's certainly all conventions, and certainly flexible -- even S-V-O word order can change for emphasis. What intrigued me here is that I'm usually consciously aware of the conventions, and in this case, I'd never even considered that there was a convention about adjective order in English until I heard my little one get it backwards.
I'm still trying to decide when I would order "size" vs. "quality". I think I'd tend to say "big beautiful woman" but "cute little kid". I wonder if it has to do with the noun; "beautiful woman" is such a frequently used phrase that "beautiful" might stick more tightly to "woman" than it would to, say, "couch".
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The rules for ordering drinks at Starbucks are also precise but hard to generalize. "Decaf grande no-whip soy mocha." If you order a "soy grande mocha, the cashier will call it correctly to the barrista.
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*uniformed
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I think the order of the first two in that list should be reversed - big beautiful woman, big ugly ass, fast little car, etc.
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Decaf, shots, syrup, milk, custom, drink. Other than where "size" goes, that seems to fit the observation above; it would make sense (either organically or by training) to call the words in cup order.
And now my brain is sitting here going "easy short book? short easy book? interesting large drawing? large interesting drawing?" and I can no longer tell which one sounds natural because they all sound weird. I'm inclined to agree with you, though.
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My feeling is that language a) has conventions, not rules and b) the conventions aren't for a reason. Like, there's no reason why subject-verb-object is better than object-verb-subject for conveying info. It's just a convention people observe.
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I'm still trying to decide when I would order "size" vs. "quality". I think I'd tend to say "big beautiful woman" but "cute little kid". I wonder if it has to do with the noun; "beautiful woman" is such a frequently used phrase that "beautiful" might stick more tightly to "woman" than it would to, say, "couch".
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